I’m so sorry about your grandmother. NYC’s vaccination “system” is awful. If my mother weren’t in a care facility, I doubt that she would have gotten her first dose. I hope that your grandmother can get vaccinated soon.
So what will they do? Fine kids who go to someone else’s apartment to socialize? Not sure they have any way to stop kids from socializing if they live off campus, and all undergrads live off campus now. I guess they can turn off any cards that get them into university buildings but they can’t control the kids just living in Ann Arbor.
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Thank you. I know, NYC is crazy. It’s like survival of the fittest for vaccines. Sad to say so many younger people with hooks jumping the lines.
Cuomo today said that the next three weeks will have a small increase to 300,000 doses per week and then week 4 will have more bc of increased production. But I don’t know what that looks like on a granular level. The state-run large centers should have clarity on that though.
I was able to secure a few appointments for my parents and some of their 65+ friends. It involves a lot of refreshing.
eta: This probably belongs on the other thread.
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A week or two ago Rice said this in a communication to students:
“We are also receiving many questions about whether Rice will require the vaccine. That decision has not been made, but if vaccination is required, it will be required no earlier than the start of the Fall semester.”
Today the school paper published an article about Rice’s hope to becoming a vaccination site. They have purchased the refrigeration systems and made plans for administration. They hope to get 10,000 doses total which should be enough for staff, faculty and students. They of course will have to follow state guidelines regarding who will get the vaccine. The article said, “If we get it before the priority groups have been satisfied, we have to follow those priorities as well. Right now [in Texas], we’re in 1A and 1B. Somewhere in the next group is higher education or groups that live together in dense populations like universities and colleges. If we get it and that’s the group we’re in, we don’t have to prioritize. Everyone can sign up at the same time.”
The same article said the mask wearing and social distancing rules will remain in place this semester regardless of whether or not the vaccine becomes available to students.
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I am uncomfortable about luxury residential schools like Rice being in the same priority “ high density living “ group as the permanent housing of low socioeconomic people. For the same rent price Rice students could probably afford a spacious detached house in Houston. They don’t “ need” do be in dorms to receive their education in person.
They do not have the same health concerns as a multigenerational house hold with a single mom who is a low wage essential worker a bunch of k-12 kids who go to different schools and an elderly parent.
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But won’t the essential worker get a vaccine before a college student? The elderly certainly are prioritized now. I don’t think anyone is saying college kids would go before either of those groups.
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Well CNN reported that white people have disproportionally higher vaccine coverage than People of colour and we know that pocs disproportionally are essential workers. The medical field are top priority but they don’t cover all essential workers like grocery store workers or cleaners.
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Texas is currently vaccinating health care workers, those 65 and older, and those with certain underlying health care issues. They have not announced who is in the next group but I suspect it will be essential workers next since that’s what the CDC recommends and they seem to be mostly following those recommendations. That seems to be the way most states are handling it. Then I THINK they will get around to other groups, such as those living in dense populations.
Even if college kids are eligible in June-Sept, and start the fall semester with the vaccine, all the other requirements (masks, distancing, eating outside or in well ventilated areas) will still be in place until the end of the year. They do not expect to have herd immunity until then.
Our state has mostly opened to 25% capacity for restaurants and indoor venues (gyms, stores). Some of the k-12 schools are starting to reopen but with much smaller class sizes, most with shorter hours, most with no lunch or only eating in the classrooms and not in a cafeteria setting. They don’t expect much to change in the next few months, even as people get vaccinated.
^^^
I disagree.
Things are changing already. With spring weather coming in March and vaccination taking effect, numbers will continue to go down. The variants are the unknown.
If circulation plummets to the level it was last summer in the northeast- with a large portion of the population vaccinated in April/May - no one will be able to stop people from living their lives.
My understanding is it’s already like there is no Covid in the South.
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Okay, but Fauci said we won’t reach herd immunity until the end of the year at the earliest. Right now, with millions of people trying to get vaccinated, we’re only at 2%. By the summer they might be getting to all those who want the vaccination, but that’s still only going to be a percentage as children won’t be eligible yet, and there will still be a lot of people who refuse or are just waiting to see what happens.
I do think schools (college and k-12) will be back on campuses, but I think they’ll be wearing masks, distancing, not having football with 60k+ fans. More labs and classes in person? Yes, but not every class in person and much smaller class sizes for those who can attend in person.
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Where are you getting 2% vaccinated? That is very old data. Over 26 million shots have been given in the US (hot off the press on Bloomberg). We have a population of approximately 250 million vaccine-eligible people in the US and total population of 328 million. No matter how you look at it, we are at a huge multiple of 2% and continuing to ramp up the pace every week.
In the US, our 7 day average number of cases peaked on January 8th at 259,000 (!), but it has been rapidly tumbling from there, and our current 7 day average is 163,000. ~40% decline in less than 3 weeks, with no sign of deceleration. Literally every state but 2 is in a rapid decline of new daily cases. Hospitalizations are also rapidly declining. Even California, which was the nightmare hospital situation and had 23,000 patients just 2 weeks ago, is down to 17,000 and rapidly decreasing.
Our numbers are heading in the right direction despite winter weather, and our vaccinations are dramatically ramping up. While it is premature to make changes to restricted behaviors now, it is not premature for planners to look to the summer and envision changes, and certainly not premature to plan for changes at schools in the fall. Yes, it is a hassle to get a vaccine in January/February when we know that the supply is scarce and demand high. But people who can read data can plan ahead and know that balance will be very different in May, June, July. This summer we will be begging hesitant people to get vaccinated; no one will be working multiple computers trying to get appointments. All of this petty complaining about who should go first will be over, as everyone who wants a shot will have the opportunity.
One key thing to remember is not just that we have a vaccine, but we have a ridiculously effective vaccine, beyond the reasonable hopes and dreams that scientists set out for our goal. 95% effective at eliminating disease and 100% effective at eliminating severe disease is no joke. Even in the possibility that the variants require a shift (no evidence of that yet), Moderna already has a booster in the works that would cover new variants.
So for colleges/universities in the fall, with basically their entire populations vaccinated with a ridiculously effective vaccine, I do not imagine that social distancing will still be necessary. I think a lot of people in some places have gotten comfortable with masks, and we may continue to see optional masking, but there really would be no rational reason to require masks at that point. I know that large summer outdoor concerts are being planned (eg in RI the Jazz Festival and Folk Festivals are planning ahead, as is the Air Show); it’s hard to imagine a reason why fall outdoor sports won’t have their spectators back.
Right now we are in the midst of the worst month of the pandemic, and it can be hard to read the data trends and look ahead, but change is coming 
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I agree with all of that. Plus, if deemed safe, there’s going to be a lot of pressure from parents paying the college bills for return to in person classes. Two and a half semesters of remote college is enough.
I heard a podcast (I think it was an In the Bubble one) where they interviewed about a dozen of infectious disease doctors who have been popular go-to for the media during the pandemic. All of them guessed anywhere from June to October for the whole country to be back to “normal”. That’s the general public. At a college where everyone is vaccinated? Seems to me that dorm life and class time should be there by the time students get back to campus.
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The variants are not unknown. The U.K. also had declining numbers until variant B117 arrived.
People who can read data, like the doctors at the CDC, predict that B117 will be the dominant strain in the U.S. by mid-March.
I sincerely hope vaccine efforts are successful in time for our kids to head off to campus in the fall. In the meantime, I think it’s only logical to assume that B117 will cause our numbers to rise, as it has done in other countries.
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I think it’s confusing when people start talking about herd immunity for a few reasons:
One: we don’t need herd immunity to live normal lives, for example we NEVER have herd immunity to flu (not saying that COVID is the same as the flu)
Two: We need a high proportion (70%+) of the population to get the vaccine for herd immunity. It’s unlikely we will ever reach 70% of adults vaccinated because of those who just won’t get it (hope I’m wrong), and because vaccination for under 12 year olds is quite a ways away, we would need that much higher a proportion of adults vaccinated to cover that shortfall.
Interesting question for parents of under 12 year olds…would you sign up your child for a COVID vaccine trial? Why or why not?
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But timing really really matters. The (at the time unknown) variant was circulating widely in the UK in October and November in a pretty much wide open/unrestricted population. No vaccines. In the US, vaccines are being administed at this time and the variant is not yet circulating widely. That matters. Less circulation bodes well for falling transmission due to lockdowns, prior infection, and vaccines. We really really need to get every vaccine available into arms as fast as humanly possible NOW. I don’t see enough urgency in our states.
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Well, I guess we won’t know until we get there! But the UK variant was detected there in September, and only spotted in the US in January, so they did have a 4 month head start on us. And unfortunately for the UK, they had the variant spreading during the very social Christmas/New Years holiday season, when there was an ongoing surge. But with the UK putting strong restrictions in, they too have seen cases plummeting, from a high of 68,000 daily cases on January 8 to 20,800 new cases yesterday (we all know deaths lag, so they will continue to go through difficult times despite the impressive decline in new transmissions). In the US, if we end up in the situation where cases start climbing due to the variant, it would not be surprising to see greater restrictions temporarily put in to buy more time to get more vaccinations done. But in the next 2 months, by late March, not only will we have the 26 million shots already given, but the expectation is 10 million per week for the next month, and then more from there, so approximately 100 million more doses in that 2 month timeframe. So it may be that the variant will be the dominant strain in the US, but it may be dominant among a much smaller number of cases. We are very fortunate to have the head start on the vaccine before this variant gets a foothold, and we will have to see what happens. But we do know that we should have 400 million doses of Pfizer/Moderna by June, plus possibly 100 million of the 1 shot J&J by then, so no matter what happens in March/April (those months could possibly be terrible!), that level of vaccination by June-August, whether true herd immunity or just getting perhaps close to half the population vaccinated, will have a massive impact on the situation. Since we are talking about what college will be like in the fall, it seems that vaccination will be the key driver of what is happening on college campuses then.
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Does anyone know when the 12-15 year olds will be out of trial?
To a point up thread re it will eventually be easy to get a vaccine. Yes, probably, and certainly for college students/ populations. But if it’s anything like the testing debacle then maybe not. I remember back in July when my family wanted to get tested after quarantining in order to see my father. It was 4 days out for an appt, an hour wait in the car, and then another 3-6 days for results. In December we got an appt 2 days out and had to wait 3 days for results. So while it has gotten somewhat easier to get tested, it has not really been more efficient.
One thing that does occur to me is that inequity extends far beyond the obvious. Some of our most vulnerable citizens are also ones who, for example, cannot take time off work to go sit for hours in their car for a vaccine. An inner city (median income 40k) friend waited 5 hours yesterday for her elderly mother’s vaccination and for which she had an appt. That’s unacceptable. Others simply don’t have transportation or even the education and savvy to know how to sign up for a vaccine. Also yesterday a friend and her healthy 20 year old son in the Dallas suburbs (median income 120k) got vaccinated in less than an hour. I wish states could do a better job with access and risk prioritization.
I agree that we probably won’t get herd immunity and people will start leading normal-ish lives regardless. My parents have their second shot scheduled and some of their friends are on a similar timeline and they are already planning to get together once everyone has passed the x week mark. I’m sure they will wear masks in public and obey rules but what would be the rationale for social distancing if they are all vaccinated? And won’t this be happening everywhere?
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